When maintaining a space in a desired existing environment, not only is air-conditioning equipment installed in the air-conditioned space for which air-conditioning is to be performed, but also temperature sensors are disposed at locations that are representative of areas of the air-conditioned space, and operating quantities for the airflow speed, the airflow direction, the temperature, and the like, of the conditioned air that is provided from the air-conditioning equipment are determined in accordance with the outputs of the temperature sensors.
In air-conditioning equipment for industrial processes, even in cases wherein there are massive heat sources, such as, for example, heat treatment furnaces for industrial use, equipment design is performed in advance to enable the temperature states to be controlled easily, and, for example, a plurality of heat sources and temperature sensors are disposed so as to be tied together in independent 1-to-1 relationships. Consequently, even if there is so-called thermal interference between heating zones, excellent control is possible in a state wherein a plurality of simple single-loop feedback control systems, such as PIDs, and the like, are of structured so that temperature control is not excessively difficult.
However, in this conventional technology, thermal interference makes it difficult to stabilize the operating quantities in the case of a large space, such as an office, or the like, and thus there is a problem in that this causes good control to be difficult. (See, for example, HIROI, Kazuo: “Fundamentals and Applications of Digital Metering Equipment Control Systems,” Industrial Engineering Company, pp. 152-156, October 1987.)
That is, in a large space, such as an office, when it comes to the placement of people, electronic equipment, and the like that act as heat sources, and the placement of desks, chairs, partitions, and the like that become obstructions to the airflow, typically the priority is on efficiency in the work operations, and thus this type of office layout is not designed with a priority on air-conditioning control. Because of this, inevitably there will be strong “thermal interferences” when it conies to the positional relationships between the vents of the air-conditioning facilities and the temperature sensors.
Consequently, in an implementation that is structured from a plurality of single-loop feedback control systems such as in the prior art, described above, it is difficult to stabilize the operating quantities due to this type of thermal interference, making optimal control difficult. For example, when the magnitude of the change in temperature when moving to the desired air-conditioning environment is large, there will be fluctuations in the state of control, and the operating quantities will be unstable because of mismatched operations wherein each of the feedback systems is individually searching for a stabilize state within the system as a whole.
The examples of the present invention solve this type of problem, and the object thereof is to provide an air-conditioning controlling technology able to obtain stabilized operating quantities even in an environment wherein thermal interferences tend to occur, such as a large space.